Date: 7 November 2024, 9:00 – 17:00 CET
Venue: Representation of the Free State of Bavaria to the European Union,
Rue Wiertz 77, 1000 Brussels, Belgium

Registration deadline : 31 October 2024


The conference highlight the vital role of the wood sector as a key driver of future competitiveness in housing and the climate debate, encouraging greater recognition and support from the new EU Commission and EU Parliament. It showcase the latest state-of-the-art in building design with wood and how the public sector can support more biobased construction to combat climate change. Members of the European Parliament and their staff, EC staff and experts, policy makers, and advocacy organisations were invited to join this policy discussion and networking event, in which over 160 participants attended in person.


The European wood sector represents a combined direct and indirect economic weight of 17.5 million jobs, €1,114 billion turnover and 7% of GDP (FHP 2023). It is a major opportunity to strengthen a competitive, domestic sector: European companies are global leaders in sustainable construction products and buildings, pushing the limits of engineering with tremendous versatility. Wood architecture offers solutions for all types of buildings and decisive advantages for affordable housing and social benefits, in rural and urban areas. A pan-European policy coordination is needed.

The conference highlighted the important role of the wood sector for the Clean Industrial Deal, Europe’s ambitious policy goal towards becoming the first climate-neutral continent.

Wood products are one essential lever to decarbonise the built environment. Forests/ trees sequester carbon into durable material, which is engineered into long-lived building products (structural elements, furniture, flooring, windows, etc). Installed into buildings, these store the carbon for decades up to centuries. Their production and use save significant emissions compared to conventional, energy-intensive materials.

By upscaling wood construction, cities will be turned into large-scale carbon sinks, and the construction chain will become a carbon pump to extract GHG from the atmosphere. Through circular solutions and cascading use of materials, the carbon storage can be further prolonged.

Fully aligned with the New European Bauhaus principles, building and renovation with wood brings together beautiful architectural design, sustainable use of materials, and inclusive renewal of urban spaces and communities.


The entire conference has been published online. Learn about how the wood sector emerges as a key player for combatting climate change and how countries and regions are encouraging and supporting this clean, just and competitive transformation of Europe!


Wood4Bauhaus Alliance is a coalition of the main EU wood sector umbrella organisations CEI-Bois, EPF, EOS and EFBWW, together with the InnovaWood network and the InnoRenew CoE, connecting research, industry and trade unions with the New European Bauhaus (NEB). The Alliance engages an open dialogue with all interested stakeholders to maximise the use of nature-based materials and sustainable building systems. The main objective is to raise awareness, strengthen policy dialogue and foster innovation in long-lived engineered wood products and hybrid, circular-by-design building solutions. The Alliance is chaired by InnovaWood.

BIOREGIONS is a knowledge-led platform dedicated to accelerating the development of sustainable and integrative forest-based circular bioeconomy. Bioregions members are Basque Country, Catalonia and North Rhine-Westphalia. The European Forest Institute (EFI) coordinates the Bioregions Facility.

WoodPoP – European Wood Policy Platform is an innovative policy dialogue platform to advance the sustainable use of wood. It is a dedicated forum for multilateral policy, knowledge and experience exchange between public and private actors from the wood sector for developing policy solutions, measures and recommendations to strengthen the wood-based circular bioeconomy at national and regional level. With 27 participating European countries, as well as around 150 different experts from stakeholder organisations, research and industry, the initiative is chaired by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Regions and Water Management of Austria. The Secretariat is hosted by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO).

Wood Cluster Styria is the innovation driver and networking partner to support companies in the forest-based sector of the Styria region in Austria. With its 170 cluster partners, the interdisciplinary team connects, advises, develops, and promotes the regional innovation ecosystem, connecting science, business and policy in the cluster.

The Representation of the Free State of Bavaria to the European Union in Brussels is kindly hosting the event.

The conference is co-organised with support of the Horizon Europe project consortia NEB Academy Alliance (NEBA Alliance), EcoReFibre, AEGIR, EUFORE and digiNEB. The projects are (co-)funded by Horizon Europe and CBE JU and its members.

Moderator

Moderator

Katharina Lehmann, CEO

Jakob Strømann-Andersen, Director of Innovation and Sustainability

Sevim Aktas, Policy Officer

Christoph Kulterer, CEO

Annika Kadaja, General Manager

Veronique Hoflack, CEO & Vice Chair of EPF

Pasi Aalto, Director

Uwe Kies, Chair of W4B Alliance, Moderator

Ruth Reichstein | Cabinet of the EC President (tbc)

Alexander Pinter, CEO

Jacobo Aboal Viñas, Director

Andreja Kutnar, Director/Professor

Tom Deleu, Secretary General

Georg Rappold, Head of Department ‘Wood Policy, Bioeconomy and Innovation’, Chair of WoodPoP

Stefanie Wieland, Team leader Wood Industries

Jacobo Aboal Viñas, Director

Veronika Steinhofer-Juch, Coordinator of the WoodPoP Secretariat

Session moderator

Session moderator

Mark Irle, Senior Researcher

Emma Romero, Architect / Head of construction solutions

Jacinto Seguí Mendez, Collaborative Development Director

Geert Coudenys, R&D director

Kristine Nore, Innovation Manager & Wendy Wuyts, CRO

The projects are funded under Horizon Europe

Javier Garcia Jaca & Vanesa Baño, Senior Researcher

Christoph Kulterer, CEO

Jos Boeren, CEO & Co-founder

Magdalena Zabek, Researcher

Liselotte de Ligne, Postdoctoral Researcher

The projects are funded under Horizon Europe

Roberto Cavallo, President

Andreja Kutnar, Director/Professor

Višnja Košćak, Manager for Internationalization

Camilla Berggren-Tarrodi, Architect and project manager

The projects are funded under Horizon Europe


Wood4Bauhaus – InnovaWood asbl | Uwe Kies | uwe.kies@innovawood.eu | +32 472 62 60 43

European Forest Institute – Bioregions Facility | Siebe Briers | siebe.briers@efi.int | +34 678 30 89 84

Short link to this page: bit.ly/wpic2024 | Last update: 30 Sep 2024